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A Simpler Lotka-Volterra Model Under Microplastic Particles Influence

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Abstract

The global increase in consumption of plastics has caused serious environmental problems. When discarded in nature, these materials degrade into microplastic particles, which have spread around the world and caused serious harm to different ecosystems. For instance, their presence in living organisms can alter predator-prey dynamics. Huang et al. [1] successfully applied a modified Lotka-Volterra model to study the impact of microplastic particles on population dynamics of predators and preys. Here, we propose to simplify their model, reducing its number of parameters without compromising its descriptive and predictive power. Also, we used time-varying intraspecific coefficients and solved analytically particular situations characterized by extreme effects on predatory performance, in addition to assigning a different meaning to the parameters removed from the original model. In addition, we have presented two important characteristic times related to the faster accumulation of microplastic particles in predators than in prey. This simpler description should be used to avoid misleading comparison between systems with microplastic particles and the ones free of them.

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Funding

A. S. M. received support from Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) (Grant No. 309851/2018-1) and NAP-FisMed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras de Ribeirão Preto, Universidade de São Paulo, Avenida dos Bandeirantes, 3900, Ribeirão Preto, 14.040-901, São Paulo, Brazil

    Lindomar Soares dos Santos & Alexandre Souto Martinez

  2. Instituto Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia em Sistemas Complexos, Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    Alexandre Souto Martinez

Authors
  1. Lindomar Soares dos Santos
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Contributions

A.S.M. obtained the analytical solutions, designed the research, wrote the manuscript and is responsible for supervision, project administration and funding acquisition. L.S.S. verified analytical solutions, wrote the numerical and validated the code, and wrote the first version of the manuscript. The authors designed the research, reviewed and edited the manuscript and agreed to its current version.

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Correspondence to Alexandre Souto Martinez.

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Soares dos Santos, L., Souto Martinez, A. A Simpler Lotka-Volterra Model Under Microplastic Particles Influence. Braz J Phys 53, 47 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13538-023-01264-2

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